Concorde - a question from a VFR private pilot

[aviate1138]

If the unlucky Air France Concorde had been a BA one, would the outcome have been the same in terms of damage sustained? Did we really need to modify the Concordes to such an extent or was it a Political decision?

Aviate1138 - mourning the passing of a great aeroplane.

[Crepello]

:rolleyes:

I'm not sure if you're trying to make a point. I hope you're not.

Look at it from an engineering perspective: A (tragic) incident occurred. Investigation revealed an unforseen failure mode, which was researched and a solution proposed. This was cost-justified - at the time - so was carried out, to enable Concorde to resume flying.

Alas, in the meantime, the economics flew even further south than the Great Lady, which is why I'll be profoundly miserable as 1500Z draws closer. A sad day indeed.

[aviate1138]

Crepello said......
I'm not sure if you're trying to make a point. I hope you're not.

Aviate says....
Well I am, because BA operated the Concorde for 3 weeks after the tragic accident [ with microscopic CAA observation] and as they had already modified the wheel guards and other bits as a result of a tyre burst some years earlier, it seemed to me to be a decision made to justify the French embarrassment of it being their Concorde that crashed. Especially as I gather Air France did not incorporate the BA changes. Am I misinformed or is that a fact? Came from a BA Flight Engineers mouth.
_I would simply point out that if it serves French politics then certain actions are taken and everybody elses view is ignored. Examples would be... Welsh lamb set on fire in lorries, farm subsidies for small French Farmers increased to the rest of European farmers detriment. French refusal to eat British Beef after EU Directives clearing the meat. French arrogance about Champagne which can be made anywhere just as well. Indian Champagne is particularly good! At a fraction of the French price. I could go on at length.
Just pi**ed off that an icon of top class Brit and French engineering has been stopped with plenty of Mach 2 revenue flying left.

Aviate 1138 - 43 Concorde UK-US-UK flights in seats 10A and 10D. One JFK-LHR flight in 2hrs 57minutes and some seconds. Every flight a blast!

[ferrydude]

ook at it from an engineering perspective: A (tragic) incident occurred. Investigation revealed an unforseen failure mode, which was researched and a solution proposed.

Not quite unforseen. There is a bit of history of tire burst incidents and resulting fuel tank penetration with Concorde. The DC-10 series is about to be mandated for similar upgrade protection as a result of a tire rupture due to FOD left on the runway from the prior departure. The resulting tire burst nearly took out all of the hydraulic systems

[twistedenginestarter]

It's quite possible that the French canned Concorde (via Airbus charges) because no-one was flying in theirs and they couldn't abide BA carrying on after they had stopped. Having said that, BA didn't seem to complain too much.

Slag the French off if you like. At least they tried hard to avoid war in Iraq. A few years Concorde flights versus 10,000 murdered innocent souls in Iraq. Now, who's the good-guy and who's the bad-guy?

[Check Mags On]

I don't post much. just like to read.

But do you have to drag your views on the Iraq war into this topic.
In my view it is a valid question. Aviate has left himself open to be corected if he is wrong about the tyre burst.
While the Iraq war contributed to the demise of Concorde due to the lack of people travelling. It is not IMHO the sole reason why.
There are many reasons why, alot of which i probably am not party to.
This is a topic about concorde.

Keep it interesting and relevant.:ok:

[Human Factor]

A significant reason for BA stopping Concorde flights is that a large number of regular Concorde pax were killed in the WTC attacks.

[**777lover**]

Apparantly BA had already done some modifications on their fleet which Air France had not! Im unsure if this is true! Also some people say it wasnt the piece of debris on the runway that caused the plane to rupture the fuel tank. It was that a part the undercarriage wasnt alligned in the right way and it hit a runway light! I dont know how true these stories are but it was still a tragic event that has effected air travel forever. :(

thankyou for reading

Dave

[strafer]

NotsoFantastic - it sounded like nonsense to me too, but on another Concorde thread it's attributed to a direct quote from Jock Lowe.

Perhaps Human Factor can explain further...

[Notso Fantastic]

There is no reason Jock Lowe would be any more right! It is plainly nonsensical. Wasn't Jock manoeuvred out prior to 911 anyway?

[Captain Phaedrus]

A couple of thoughts...

First, if we were to address hazards at equivalent levels of probability to that pertaining in the AF crash, we would all stop flying. Considering that we use statistics to prove safety throughout aviation, we ought to have got beyond the knee-jerk reaction to one-off event chains. The response should have been along the lines of: 'It was a tragedy, but is so unlikely to happen again, that we just keep flying'.

Second, bearing in mind that terrorists are able, with relative ease, to get their hands on some pretty basic SLAAMs, many of which target best on very powerful heat sources, should we consider the fact that Concorde constituted a combination of exceptionally-high-value asset and exceptionally high IR signature, and consider that it is the easiest civil airliner to shoot down, and also the most valuable target for a terrorist to hit, and that the risks just got too great for the operators and/or insurers? (Most fan-jets are not easy to target).

[SkyRocket10]

More thoughts....

We are told how a ruptured tyre caused the whole sequence of events, however has human error ever been thoroughly investigated and ruled out?
Forgive me if I'm wrong but the disaster was entirely attributed to design faults, but the version I have been told by a BA engineer tells an entirely different story. Apparently during the maintenance checks on the aircraft beforehand the tyre in question was replaced, although during the refit they failed to replace a tyre spacer. Subsequently it was this extra movement in the wheel that caused the tyre to rupture.

So was the need for all these refits a complete necessity or just a cover up?

[GrantT]

Don't forget the flight that day was 50 tons overweight making it over the MTOW.

[Bellerophon]

GrantT

"...the flight that day was 50 tons overweight making it over the MTOW..."

Rubbish!

To read the official accident report, click here (http://www.bea-fr.org/anglaise/actualite/actuConcorde.htm)

According to the BEA, the aircraft was estimated to have commenced take-off at either 186,251 kgs or 185,757 kgs, depending on what assumptions are made about passenger weights.

The BEA calculate therefore that she was either +1,181 kgs or +687 kgs over her maximum authorised takeoff weight of 185,070 kgs, and in their report they admit this and comment, quite fairly, that:

"...it appears that the aircraft was slightly overloaded on takeoff, regardless of the hypotheses used to make the calculation..."

They attribute this "slight overload" to two main reasons.

Firstly, they now believe that 1,000 kgs less taxy fuel was used during the taxy-out than had been forecast.

Secondly, they now know, which the flight crew at the time did not, that 19 extra passenger bags (weighing 393 kgs) were onboard the aircraft, but not accounted for on the loadsheet.

They go on to make the point that at take-off the aircraft weight, whilst over MATOW, was still below the calculated performance weight of 186,700 kgs.

Under these circumstances, their subsequent finding that "...any effect on takeoff performance from this excess weight was negligible... seems well researched, well argued and quite reasonable.

Regards

Bellerophon


Excerpts from Accident Report F-SC000725A are by courtesy of, and copyright to, the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile - France.

[spekesoftly]

Interesting comment from Notso. I do clearly recall that a recent BBC Concorde documentary did claim that some forty of BA's most regular Concorde passengers were killed in the WTC tragedy. Predominantly senior company executives, not only had they regularly flown Concorde themselves, but were also in a position to authorise other employees to fly on Concorde, when deemed appropriate. This was given as one reason why scheduled BA Concorde passenger figures never recovered.

[northwing]

BA did use different tyres to the French. Whether that would have given a different result when the tyre hit the bit of titanium debris which had fallen off a DC10 is anybody's guess. It is certainly true that there had been previous tyre/wheel rim incidents which in retrospect could easily have been nastier. Concorde tyres are pretty meaty bits of kit and the crash tyre destroyed itself comprehensively. That said, the pressures etc are not that much higher than those of the subsonic jets and I imagine Boeing and Airbus will have been taking a hard look at the areas above the tyres on their existing jets.

The fact that the crash jet was right up at max weight didn't help on the day, but if it was slightly overweight that wasn't a significant factor. Similarly, the missing spacer on one wheel bogie wouldn't have helped but the result would have been no different if it had been there. The aircraft was designed to climb at 4% gradient on 3 engines with the gear up. (In this respect it was safer than subsonic 4-engined jets which have to climb at 3.2%) On the day it had 2.5 engines running, an undercarriage that didn't retract fully and the afterbody drag of the plume of flame at the back, which is perceived by the passing air as part of the aircraft. There was no way it was going to be able to maintain altitude.

Ultimately it was Air France and Airbus who killed the project. AF were haemoraging (spelling?) money and had to cut something. France Inc could not bear to see the Brits carrying on where they had given up so they applied pressure on the French parts of Airbus to make continued support look ultra expensive.

I am as sad as anyone to see the aircraft go out of service as I worked on it for 4 years at the beginning of my career. However, the fact is that it has had its day and we have to move on. It was a unique achievement of the last century, and they can't take that away from us.